one de Lawd only knows. Marse Oliver's like the
rabbit, sah--he don't leab no tracks," and Malachi
would hold his sides in a chuckle of so suffocating a
nature that it would have developed into apoplexy in
a less wrinkled and emaciated person.

Inside of the front door of this venerable mansion
ran a wide hall bare of everything but a solid mahogany
hat-rack and table with glass mirror and heavy
haircloth settee, over which, suspended from the ceiling,
hung a curious eight-sided lantern, its wick replaced
with a modern gas-burner. Above were the
bedrooms, reached by a curved staircase guarded by
spindling mahogany bannisters with slender hand-rail
--a staircase so pure in style and of so distinguished
an air that only maidens in gowns and slippers should
have tripped down its steps, and only cavaliers in silk
stockings and perukes have waited below for their
hands.

Level with the bare hall, opened two highly polished
mahogany doors, which led respectively into the
drawing-room and library, their windows draped in
red damask and their walls covered with family portraits.
All about these rooms stood sofas studded with
brass nails, big easy-chairs upholstered in damask, and
small tables piled high with magazines and papers.
Here and there, between the windows, towered a bookcase
crammed with well-bound volumes reaching clear
to the ceiling. In the centre of each room was a broad